Samoan tourism operators fight to rebuild fale

JOHN SELKIRK/Dominion Post

DISASTER ZONE: Prime Minister John Key walks past the piles of a washed away fale on the sand at the Sinalei Resort.

RECONSTUCTION: Samoan tourism operators, including Sinalei Resort owner Joe Annandale, are seeking to rebuild fale on beaches.

JOHN SELKIRK/Dominion Post

AFTERMATH: New Zealand Prime Minister John Key amid tsunami damage to Lalomanu Beach, Samoa.

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Samoa's tourism operators are fighting for the right to build fale or houses on beaches, despite many of them being destroyed and their occupants killed or injured in September's tsunami, the Samoa Observer reports.

Among those strongly advocating them is one of the biggest operators who lost his wife in the tsunami.

In the last decade tourist fale have been built right on beaches. When the tsunami hit Samoa it destroyed all the resorts in the Aleipata area of Upolu and further west including the luxury Sinalei resort.

In Samoa 143 people died, most from Aleipata.

The Observer said tourism operators met in Apia and have argued against a ban on beach fale.

Sinalei owner Tuatagaloa Joe Annandale told the meeting that part of the attraction to visitors was sleeping in a house on the beach that the waves could reach.

"It's part of our package."

His resort lost several of its beach fale, they are now rebuilding.

His wife Tui was killed in the tsunami.

Other operators said beach fale were a unique part of the Samoan experience.

Many of the resorts, particularly at Lalomanu, were set on a beach backed by a steep, almost inaccessible cliff.

Koroseta Legalo of Faofao Beach Fale said they had a hiking track from their fale and said it saved 56 tourists, 40 or so relatives, many children and other residents.

However, the track needed to be improved, she said.

"The plan is for Faofao to be re-opened on 29 November or the first week of December."

The Taufua family, who lost 14 members in the tsunami, plan to reopen as well.

Taufua Beach Fale owner Sili Apelu said they would install escape routes up the side of the mountain.

"For those of you who are not familiar with Aleipata, there is hardly any place to run to to escape the sea."

Before the tsunami they had already started building an "emergency house" on the mountain to cope with cyclones and storm surges.

He said they will call their buildings "day fale" which means they will only be used during the day because if natural disaster strikes at night there was no time to escape.